To read Mr. Douthat’s essay of July 27,2013 is to encounter a comic pastiche of a philosophical commentary: on the subject of self-understanding as integral to self-definition, confining itself to the contemporary American Republican Party. But Mr. D. cannot resist the very real temptation to indulge in shopworn cliche. He is, after all, a newspaperman facing one of many deadlines. And the comedy begins with his inauspicious title. By all means, read the whole essay for the continuity of his argument, but read in isolation the constituent parts of his essay, as expressing the power of cliche to move that argument into the realm of a kind of philosophical/political comedy.

The opening paragraph:

‘BEFORE political movements can be understood by others, they need to understand themselves: what they want to be, what they actually are and how they might bridge the gap between aspiration and reality.’

The Nihilist Republican statement of purpose:

‘Today, the post-George W. Bush, post-Mitt Romney conservative movement is one-third of the way there. Among younger activists and rising politicians, the American right has a plausible theory of what its role in our politics ought to be, and how it might advance the common good. What it lacks, for now, is the self-awareness to see how it falls short of its own ideal, and the creativity necessary to transform its self-conception into victory, governance, results.’

The now invalid Left/Right political divide, re-described:

‘The theory goes something like this: American politics is no longer best understood in the left-right terms that defined 20th-century debates. Rather, our landscape looks more like a much earlier phase in democracy’s development, when the division that mattered was between outsiders and insiders, the “country party” and the “court party.”’

A partial quote of his telling historical analogy:

‘These terms emerged in 18th-century Britain, during the rule of Sir Robert Walpole, the island kingdom’s first true prime minister. They were coined by his opponents, a circle led by Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, who were both conservative and populist at once: they regarded Walpole’s centralization of power as a kind of organized conspiracy, in which the realm’s political, business and military interests were colluding against the common good.’

The rhetorical appearance of the New-guard Republican Politicians:

‘Bolingbroke is largely forgotten today, but his skepticism about the ways that money and power intertwine went on to influence the American Revolution and practically every populist movement in our nation’s history. And it’s his civic republican ideas, repurposed for a new era, that you hear in the rhetoric of new-guard Republican politicians like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, in right-wing critiques of our incestuous “ruling class,” and from pundits touting a “libertarian populism” instead.’

The promise of Libertarian Populism as imagined by Mr. Douthat:

‘Theirs is not just the usual conservative critique of big government, though that’s obviously part of it. It’s a more thoroughgoing attack on the way Americans are ruled today, encompassing Wall Street and corporate America, the media and the national-security state.’

The failure of the Politics of the Present, Neo-Liberalism, from a theoretical perspective:

‘As theories go, it’s well suited to the times. The story of the last decade in American life is, indeed, a story of consolidation and self-dealing at the top. There really is a kind of “court party” in American politics, whose shared interests and assumptions — interventionist, corporatist, globalist — have stamped the last two presidencies and shaped just about every major piece of Obama-era legislation. There really is a disconnect between this elite’s priorities and those of the country as a whole. There really is a sense in which the ruling class — in Washington, especially — has grown fat at the expense of the nation it governs.’

The problem with the Nihilist Republicanism of the present defined, with an aside about the loss of faith in the Obama Political Program, as Crony Liberalism:

‘The problem for conservatives isn’t their critique of this court party and its works. Rather, it’s their failure to understand why many Americans can agree with this critique but still reject the Republican alternative.

They reject it for two reasons. First, while Republicans claim to oppose the ruling class on behalf of the country as a whole, they often seem to be representing an equally narrow set of interest groups — mostly elderly, rural (the G.O.P. is a “country party” in a far too literal sense) and well-off. A party that cuts food stamps while voting for farm subsidies or fixates on upper-bracket tax cuts while wages are stagnating isn’t actually offering a libertarian populist alternative to the court party’s corrupt bargains. It’s just offering a different, more Republican-friendly set of buy-offs.

Second, as much as Americans may distrust a cronyist liberalism, they prefer it to a conservatism that doesn’t seem interested in governing at all. This explains why Republicans could win the battle for public opinion on President Obama’s first-term agenda without persuading the public to actually vote him out of office. The sense that Obama was at least trying to solve problems, whereas the right offered only opposition, was powerful enough to overcome disappointment with the actual results.

The Libertarians as protectors of the Plutocrats, the Obamacare, Romneycare, Heritage Foundation Health Care failure as exemplary of what?’

Both of these problems dog the right’s populists today. There might indeed be a “libertarian populist” agenda that could help Republicans woo the middle class — but not if, as in Rand Paul’s budget proposals, its centerpiece is just another sweeping tax cut for the rich. There might be a way to turn Obamacare’s unpopularity against Democrats in 2014 — but not if Republican populists shut down the government in a futile attempt to defund it.

Against the present Republican Nihilism:

‘To overthrow a flawed ruling class, it isn’t enough to know what’s gone wrong at the top. You need more self-knowledge, substance and strategic thinking than conservatives have displayed to date.

Here the historical record is instructive. The original “country party” critique of Robert Walpole’s government was powerful, resonant and intellectually influential.

But it still wasn’t politically successful. Instead, the era as a whole belonged to Walpole and his court — as this one, to date, belongs to Barack Obama.’

1 Response to The Bon Mots of Ross Douthat or The Comic Chatter of ‘Going for Bolingbroke’ by Political Observer

I have to say that you are on the right track in your comments on Mr. Douthat’s essay, but let me just comment.
The opening paragraph indicates that Mr.D. has constructed a bit of obvious propaganda. The idea of a self-aware,self-possessed Republican strains credulity to the point of comedy, as your examination of the categories he constructs make clear.
One of my favorite quotes is this one:
‘Among younger activists and rising politicians, the American right has a plausible theory of what its role in our politics ought to be, and how it might advance the common good.’
The most naive reader of this sentence might just break into a hearty guffaw at this bit of humbug. The idea of the Free Market has taken the place of the ‘common good’ as one of the two strategies of Modern Republicanism, the other being the notorious Southern Strategy.
Here is another favorite:
‘Bolingbroke is largely forgotten today, but his skepticism about the ways that money and power intertwine went on to influence the American Revolution and practically every populist movement in our nation’s history. And it’s his civic republican ideas, repurposed for a new era, that you hear in the rhetoric of new-guard Republican politicians like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, in right-wing critiques of our incestuous “ruling class,” and from pundits touting a “libertarian populism” instead.’
Bolingbroke, skepticism, money&power, American Revolution, civic republican ideas, Rand Paul and Mike Lee, libertarian populism: this paragraph is chock-a-block with ideas united only by the demands of propaganda. Not to speak of Mr. D.’s unfailing ability to make contemporary Republican Nihilism seem almost plausible as vulgarized comedy.
Political Cynic